How Google evaluates content and websites

Google does not use one algorithm with a fixed list of factors. It uses many automated ranking systems that look at different signals, and their weight changes depending on the query.

What Google says it looks at

Google's own explanation of ranking names five groups of factors:

Factor	What it covers
Meaning	What the query means and what the searcher wants (search intent)
Relevance	Whether the content matches the query, for example the words in headings and text
Quality	Signals of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, including links from prominent sites
Usability	Whether the page is accessible and pleasant to use. Speed and mobile experience help when other signals are similar
Context	The searcher's location, language, settings and history

The weight depends on the query. Freshness matters a lot for news and very little for a dictionary definition.

Named ranking systems

Google publishes a guide to its ranking systems. A few that matter for beginners:

• Link analysis and PageRank: how pages link to each other, used to understand what pages are about and which may be most helpful.
• Deduplication: avoids showing many near-identical results.
• Freshness: shows newer content where freshness is expected.
• Original content: tries to show original reporting ahead of copies.
• Reviews: rewards in-depth reviews written by experts or enthusiasts.
• Spam detection (including SpamBrain): removes or demotes spam.

People-first content

Google asks site owners to create content mainly to help people, not to attract search traffic. Its guidance suggests three questions:

• Who made the content? Is the author clear, with information about them?
• How was it made? For example, what testing was done, and was automation or AI involved, where a reader would expect to know?
• Why was it made? Google calls this the most important question. The answer should be "to help people", not "to rank".

Google lists warning signs of search engine-first content. Examples include writing to a word count because you think Google prefers one, and changing the date on pages that have not substantially changed.

E-E-A-T and YMYL

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. It comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines. Google added "Experience" in December 2022.

Google says trust is the most important part of E-E-A-T. It gives these signals more weight for YMYL topics, "Your Money or Your Life". These are topics that could significantly affect people's health, financial stability or safety, or the welfare of society. Medical advice, financial products and legal guidance are typical YMYL topics.

Core updates

Several times a year Google releases a broad core update to its ranking systems.

A manual action is different. It is applied by a person at Google for a spam policy violation, and it is reported in Search Console.

What crosses the line

Google's spam policies describe practices that can get pages demoted or removed. Some you will meet in practice:

• Keyword stuffing: filling pages with keywords, lists of cities or repeated phrases to manipulate rankings.
• Link spam: buying or selling links that pass ranking credit, or excessive link exchanges. Paid links are fine when they are marked rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".
• Scaled content abuse: producing many low-value pages mainly to rank, however they are made, whether by AI, by people or by both.
• Cloaking: showing search engines different content from what users see.
• Site reputation abuse: publishing third-party content on a strong site mainly to exploit its ranking signals.

Learning these is not about avoiding getting caught. These tactics are risky for the businesses you work for, and they are usually a sign of a weak strategy.